As the majority of the population is concentrated in cities, ever increasing number of high-rise buildings are erected for more and more people to live and work in a limited space.
For concern of human fatality in the high-rise buildings in case of fire, it has been stipulated to install emergency exits and fire doors, or a rappelling type descender or various other means have been provided as an alternative emergency escape, although a very small number of the prospective users might be familiar with the use of such contraption, setting aside how well they could actually follow the emergency maneuvering of the descender with fear.
Besides, the emergency exit, for example is where most people converge and is thus occasionally incapacitated. In addition, a fire door is typically installed at the emergency exit for preventing a flow of smoke and flames but it is often made to work only with the manual operation of a volunteer, which may happen rarely. In this case, the emergency exit tends to function as the smoke chimney, rather resulting in the spread of a fire. There have been reports of a substantial number of casualties that occurred due to the adverse effect of the fire door which exposes the victims unprotected to the flame and even more deadly poisonous gas.
The present applicant proposed a safe escape technology in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-099824-00000 Nov. 29, 2010 entitled “The installation to evacuating from a fire” with a box-type collapsible fixture placed on a veranda or balcony to allow isolated persons from an emergency exit to safely escape from flames and noxious fumes until rescuers arrive for help. However, such facilities may not be aesthetically pleasing as they are publically visible between occasional services, and they are susceptible to oxidation corrosions at various metallic panels and hinges in wet weather hampering the full durability.
In addition, there may be a difficulty for the general public to maneuver those facilities in the collapsing and expanding operations, and the suggested configurations could be regarded as structurally unstable.